For weeks now, senior Ukrainian officials – from President Vladimir Zalansky to Ukrainian Ambassador to Berlin Andrei Melnik – have openly accused the Germans of supporting the Russian war machine by buying billions in energy from Moscow, and hesitating to supply heavy weapons. The harsh criticism began even before the war, and even the freezing of the “Nord Stream 2” project, cuts in Russian coal imports, the supply of anti-tank missiles or the treatment of Ukrainian wounded did not help to moderate it. Kyiv demands German tanks and an immediate gas embargo.
Tensions between the two countries have reached a peak in recent days, when it was revealed that Zalansky refused to host German President Frank Walter-Steinmeier in Kiev for a media visit. Steinmeier is considered in Kiev to have paved the way for Germany’s energy dependence on Russia, in part through its support for “Nord Stream 2”, and also as a sort of “personal associate” of Putin. He served as foreign minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government before he was elected president, and photos of him with Putin awarding an honorary degree at Moscow University have been circulated on social media in recent days.
Ukrainians do not spare criticism from Merkel. After the scale of the atrocities in Bocha was revealed with the withdrawal of the Russian army, Zlansky said she had to pay a visit to the place to “see the results” of her pro-Russian policy. And while Merkel has already retired from the political system, Steinmeier was recently elected for the second time to the highest position in the country – the president of the German Federal Republic.
Steinmeier admits: The policy towards Russia was wrong
Steinmeier has been trying in recent days to hit on sin publicly. In an interview with German media, he said that the Russian policies of the governments in which he served were “wrong.” He was apparently interested in completing the expression of remorse with a symbolic visit to Kiev, and meeting with Zalansky, as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the President of the European Union and other European officials had done before him. But in recent days it has become clear that the Ukrainians have vetoed the visit.
Exposing the refusal is already leading to some change in German public opinion regarding Ukraine. So far there has been uncompromising support for the state, the public and the media, but also for the political system. Germany changed its foreign and security policy 180 degrees because of the war, as well as its policy toward Russia. Almost all government ministries are now working hard on Russian energy recovery programs, industry and German banks are struggling to cope with the implications of international sanctions on Russia. The German economy is expected to suffer significant damage due to Berlin’s moves.
But now, for the first time, criticism is being leveled against Zalansky and the Ukrainian government. “Insulting the federal president is not the most appropriate tool to get the German government to reconsider its policies,” an opinion piece on Der Spiegel magazine’s website read. “Zalansky is undermining German solidarity with Ukraine,” wrote a columnist in the Tagagspiegel, noting that “the Ukrainian president made a mistake” during this.
Some see the move as a personal reaction against Steinmeier. “Canceling a visit by the most senior representative of a friendly country is perhaps one of the sharpest political measures in Arsenal. It is a punishment and an attempt at public humiliation,” Der Spiegel wrote this morning … “Only for the federal president.”
Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Melnik, who has also spoken out strongly in recent weeks against German hesitation to help Ukraine militarily by sending tanks and additional weapons, said Kyiv would be “very happy to host” a visit by Chancellor Olaf Schultz. One of the leaders of the coalition-affiliated FDP party said he does not see such a visit taking place after Steinmeier’s Ukrainian rejection. “It is unthinkable that a chancellor in an FDP-backed government would visit a country that defines the head of the German Federal Republic as an undesirable figure,” one of the party’s leaders, Wolfgang Kubiki, told German news agencies.